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Union Direct Vote
Union Direct Vote The highest political power in the Union - higher than the Assembly is the will of the Union Citizens. It is basically a simple majority vote and all Union Citizens are encouraged, even required to cast their vote on an issue escalated to a Union Direct Vote. Any Union Citizen can either via his representative, or directly, ask to address the Assembly via the central platform if the citizen has gone the correct way and raise a Union Direct Vote. If 5% of the present Representatives agree, (or if at least 100,000 watching citizens agree) a Union Direct vote is called. The issue is then presented with all the facts and information available to the Union Public and all Citizen can vote on that within one Union Week. A simple majority decides the issue and that is the final decision. No court, no Assembly Vote, No law can overturn it. There are about 10 to 20 Union Direct Votes every year and about 7 percent are Union Citizen direct requests. The subjects of the request does not matter. Selected Union Direct Votes *Request for approval of the Union Citizen Act - Approved 88% *Request for pardon in the Admiral Swybar Case by the Emperor of the Thauran Empire - Denied 89% *Request to make Green Hell a Galactic Treasure and protect it from further development - Approved 88 % *Request to protect Gore II and remove all influence - Denied 77% *Request to send Envoys to Kermac Prime and promise them to disband the Union, if they stopped all their opposition - Denied 99.98 %. *Request to make Ponda Berry Pie the Official Pie of the Union Denied 59%. *Request to make Planet Place a Union Protectorate and the Huffh protected species - Approved 87%. *Request to deny the Camogi membership - denied 96% Note: The Execution of Richard Stahl during his trial - An overwhelming majority of the Union Population voted against an execution but the Peace Hawks did not allow a second vote on his sentence and the Union Direct vote was suspended by the Peace Hawk Party with the argument that the intellectual elite needed to decide for the misguided and mentally challenged general public. Notes Any Union Citizen feeling that he or she was overlooked, not heard or misrepresented can go to the Office of Proposals (via any Union School teacher or Union Library employee) and present his issue. If he goes through the motions and the issue remains unresolved he can escalate the issue all the way to a Citizen Platform request, address the Assembly him, her, or itself and ask for a Union Direct Vote. The only thing that can reverse or modify a Union Direct Vote is another one - Unless otherwise specified within the act, it's to be held no sooner than 10 years after the first one, and the potential need for updating being anticipated in the original proposal. An Union Direct Vote has only been changed this way twenty-five times up to 5050. In contrast, over 4,000 Union Direct Votes no longer have any effect since the reason for them no longer exists (Three quarters of those refer to requests that the Union Navy increase the assets used to protect a solar system on the border of Union Space or trade routes between two such systems where, as a result of new members and/or destruction of enemies, those solar systems are now are hundreds of light years from the edge of Union Space.) It was noted that within the Thauran Empire the vote was over 90% in favor of giving Admiral Swybar a pardon, while in the neighboring Kingdom of New Siam, the vote was 99.93% against doing that. It was raised to a Union Vote after a Speech of the President saying that the Kermac needed to know what the Union as whole thinks about them and thus reached the 5% threshold and a vote was cast, with a very clear result. Why Lora Ginghill of Ponda Planet managed to get the 5 % Assembly Reps to call for a Union Vote is often called a case of bribery as she served this pie in her planets pavilion for a few weeks for free to Representatives. Why she almost succeeded and 41% of all Union Citizen voted FOR making her pie the Official Pie of the Union (no one really even knew what that really meant) is a frequent debate among students, professors and Scholars, but no one knows for sure. Had this been approved, after ten years the Official Pie of the Union would have been subject to a Union Direct Vote. During the trial of the leaders of the Peace Hawk Party, suspension of the Union Direct Vote was considered one of the most serious crimes against the Union. Category:United Stars of the Galaxies Category:Diplomacy & Policies